No Longer Friends
by JaneDoe297
Summary: Summary: A one-shot set after season 2 before Barbara becomes Oracle. One of many ideas about what might have nudged Nightwing and Batgirl into a relationship. Preview: He took a deep breath. She stepped closer, reached her arm over his shoulder, and hit the autopilot button for him. He spun his chair around and looked up at her.


"Batgirl!" He urged, "Barbara!... Barbara!" His voice grew more distressed. She had been cut off mid-sentence. He stood quietly, staring at the static left behind on his comm-link.

Kept frozen in place, he made his deductions. He waited a few moments and expected to here footsteps outside the plane. Enough time had passed that he began to worry. She had been close enough to the ship when they last spoke that she should have been there by now. Not willing to hesitate any longer, he grabbed his escrima sticks and headed for the door. Before he could open the latch, she came bolting through.

Whelmed with relief and overfilled with adrenaline, he heedlessly planted a small kiss on her lips. He was quick to pull away and realized how inappropriate it was. His hands briefly lingered on the edge of her shoulders before he snapped his focus back to the mission.

He ran back up to the cockpit, grabbed the controls, and started on their eight-hour flight back to headquarters. Barbara had not moved since the kiss. She remained paralyzed in disbelief. Her mind had shifted so abruptly from mission escape to a total freeze all caused by the kiss. She didn't know how to react to or what to think of it. Sure, they had kissed before but only when they were children. It was a game to them and held very little meaning. This...this was different. There were no party games, no dares, no...This wasn't like it was some teenager experimenting with curiosity. It was raw and impulsive. Perhaps the kiss was an exploring something else, some unspoken thing between them. A slight smile came over her face.

"Did you find everything we needed?" He asked, attempting to readjust his thoughts back to the mission and lead the conversation to something else. He tried not to think about what had happened and hoped she would too.

"Uh, yeah...I think I did," Babs replied. She unpaused from her spot during the kiss, stepped away, and started unpacking her gear. "The archived files I pulled from the labs should be more than enough."

An awkward silence continued for far too long. He struggled to come up with another topic. Even though he didn't want to talk about the only thing he had on his mind was her. How could he talk about it? He could never find the right words to express his current feelings. He was concerned with her take on the situation. Would she understand him? He didn't want to ruin anything, although it was probably too late for that.

A big smile still ran across her face when she finished with her gear and slowly walked up into the cockpit. She stood behind his chair, expecting him to turn around. She knew she had to be careful about how she approached this. If the conversation came across to flirty the way it always did, it would be difficult to be taken seriously. It's far easier for them to joke about these things than really talk about them.

"Gray?" Her voice was soft and slow. He knew what was coming and braced himself for it.

"Yeah, Babs."

"We aren't just going to ignore that, are we?" He took a deep breath and began to prepare what was in his head for recitation. She stepped closer, reached her arm over his shoulder, and hit the autopilot button for him. He spun his chair around and looked up at her. Unsure of how she interpreted it, he started with.

"I'm sorry, Babs, it was inappropriate, and it shouldn't have happened." She seemed unsatisfied with his response, so he opened his mouth to continue, but she interrupted.

"Gray, you don't have to apologize," she shook her head slowly. "It's not just you. I've been feeling the same way too. And I know with you being team leader you try to be a good example and follow all the rules, and you're good at it, and I admire you so much for that. But you can't just swallow all of your feelings for the sake of the mission, that's not you. If you don't let it all out now, you'll regret it one day when you never get the chance to. I think its a stupid rule because, of course, you're going to have relations with people on the team. They're the only people you interact with on a daily basis how could you not? The rule gets broken all the time anyways. Just because he has certain guidelines for how the team should be run doesn't mean you have to implement them. Your NOT him, and I am grateful for that. Don't let this job stand in your way of living your life; it's too short for that. So let's live it together." He stood up, took both of her hands, and squeezed them tight. He looked down at them and smiled into a sigh of relief.

"I wasn't sure I'd be able to put into words all of the things that had been rolling around inside my mind. But you just did it perfectly. You get me and are one of the few people who understand what it's like. I feel lucky that you are not just apart of my world right now but have been for so long. And I...I love you... and I have been in love with you for quite a while. Everything you said was true. I've been shoving these feelings aside for too long, and it's killing me...I'm sorry, but I don't think we can be friends anymore," he began to joke, parodying a breakup line. " We are gonna have to end that right now. I can't watch you walk around the way you do and only see you as a friend; that's ridiculous," he said with a chuckle.

"No, we can't be friends," she joined in with a smile.

"No, I think it would actually ruin me." He pulls her into a big bear hug, and they start waddling around, joking and laughing. "I am actually resigning as your friend."

"Okay," she said as she giggled. Her chin was pressed into his chest, and she looked up at him.

"Do you accept my resignation?" She nodded. "You do? Yeah?" He said as he rested his forehead on hers.

"Yes, I do," her last syllable is cut off by his lips, and they continued kissing, broke up with little fits of intermittent giggles. Slowly the kiss became more serious and passionate. She broke apart for a moment only to say. "I love you too, Gray."

"I know," They looked at each other and saw something new for the first time.


End file.
